Saturday, April 26, 2014

The Fourth Fruit Tree

This year, I worried about the unusually heavy winter weather in North Texas. As we moved toward Spring, the last frost date kept getting pushed back farther and farther. Even though I was grateful that we would not have to worry about enough chill hours to set fruit, as in previous very mild winters, it seemed like Spring would never come.

Then when it finally did, my peach tree began to blossom beautifully. Lovely pink blossoms, budding out all over the tree. When it had about a quarter to a third of a tree full of blossoms, the weather turned freezing cold and we received quarter-sized hail. Many of the peach blossoms were destroyed. We all felt cruelly fooled again by the weather.

However, since all the buds had not blossomed yet, I realized there was a possibility that all was not lost. So it turned out to be. Gratefully, more buds blossomed into their beautiful pink color during the next couple of weeks. Tiny peaches began to grow.

Two of my other fruit trees began to bud before the hail, but the third one just looked like a tall dead stick with small dead branches. It just stayed looking dead as everything else began to grow around it. A few weeks after the other fruit trees had budded and were beginning to blossom, the fourth fruit tree finally began to bud. It actually was not dead, just dormant until the right time for it to bud out.

I draw a metaphor from this experience.

I have many projects which I wish would all happen right away when I think of them.

I write, plan, collect resources, and wish and hope and work, but some of them just take a much longer time to come to fruition, like the fourth fruit tree. I could live more calmly and with much less anxiety if I realized this. Obviously, it will be worth learning more patience.